Century 21’s Larry Mentzer on reopening a legacy NYC off-price retailer

Century 21 was an iconic New York off-price store that is now trying to return to its former glory.

After filing for bankruptcy and shutting down all 13 of its locations, Century 21 reopened its lower Manhattan locations.

"We are, in fact, an iconic legacy piece of New York, and we're happy to be back," Larry Mentzer, the retailer's chief operating officer, said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Mentzer spoke about the strategy with the reopening as well as plans for the future.

The retail landscape has been transformed over the last four years -- and Century 21 has had to reckon with those changes. As part of the reopening, the company dramatically cut down its store size as well as the types of products it sells. Now, it focuses predominately on apparel and less on areas that didn't sell as well, such as home goods and kids shoes.

"We really made a conscious effort to edit the assortment, keep it tight, turn faster, carry less inventory and show the customer really must-have designers and must-have items that you can't come back tomorrow and get it," he said.

While foot traffic and sales have gone up and down over the last year, Mentzer says things are looking promising. "I can tell you that Q1, which was February, March and April of 2024, was better. And Q2, which we're just recently rolling into, is incredibly better. So we're excited about the summer," he said.